“If he’s judging their breed on that day, certainly not. Most judges won’t come under the tent at all. Carl had the Sporting Group today, but the Poodle people still know who he is. He’s judged the breed for years.”
“Were he and Uncle Max friends?”
“Friends and rivals. Carl started out in Irish Setters about the same time we began with Poodles. But while Max and I stayed with our first breed, Carl branched out in several directions. In the late seventies, he even had a Standard Poodle—one of ours, I’m happy to say. She had several group wins, as I recall.”
“Then he’s a breeder, too.”
“Oh no.” Aunt Peg shook her head. “Not any more. He applied and got his judge’s license more than twenty years ago. It was much easier then. Not that Carl wasn’t qualified, but it just was. Now he judges a number of different breeds and his services are in great demand. Every single weekend of the year, he’s flying off to one cluster or another.
“Carl thrives on the travel, and the competition and the politics. Even after these years, he still finds it tremendously exciting. It works for him, certainly. But I’m glad Max and I chose another route.”
“Where does he live?”
“Texas is his home base. But as I said, he travels all over North America for assignments. This week, obviously, it was Connecticut. He’s a very nice man, actually. Courtly, in a rather old-fashioned way. I was pleased to have the opportunity to see him.”
I walked over and put my mug in the sink. It was time to get home to Davey. “So what’s next?” I asked.
“A visit to Will Perkins when you get a chance. And then Farmington, week after next.”
“More shows.”
“Of course, more shows. Every exhibitor doesn’t go every week. Trust me, it’ll be a while yet before you run out of new faces.”
“So I just keep doing what I’m doing.”
“Again and again,” said Aunt Peg. “Until it works.”
thirteen
Davey was in high spirits when I got home. He and Joanie and his best friend, Joey Brickman, had spent the afternoon frog hunting.
“In the rain?” I asked, although the answer was evident. His clothing was soaked through. I peeled it off and ran a hot bath. “What did Joanie have to say about that idea?”
“She liked it.”
“I’ll bet.”
His overalls were in a heap on the floor. Davey stared at them in fascination. Just for the hell of it, I had a look, too. It wasn’t my imagination. They were moving.
I didn’t really want to know, but I felt I had to ask. “Davey, what’s inside your pocket?”
Naked, my son bounded down off the bed. “That’s Harry. He can take a bath with me.”
“Oh no, he can’t.” I rescued the hapless frog as Davey fished it from his pocket and cupped it, none too gently, in his hands. “Harry belongs outside.”
“But he’s my new pet!”
“He is?”
“Yup. Joey took his frog home, too. We even found one for Joanie.”
Ah yes,Joanie. The baby-sitter extraordinaire. I could see that she and I were going to have a little chat.
“Honey, we don’t have any place to keep a frog.”
“Sure we do. In the bathtub. We can dig up worms for him to eat.”
Right. “Davey, Harry is a wild frog. I don’t think he could survive in captivity. We have to let him go.”
“But I just caught him.”
“And you did a great job, too.” I pulled his bathrobe down from its hook on the back of the bathroom door. For now, the bath could wait. “But I’m sure Harry has a family outside that’s waiting for him to come home. We wouldn’t want them to be worried about him, would we?”
“I guess not.” Reluctantly, Davey followed me down the stairs, the long flannel bathrobe trailing around his ankles. When we reached the back door, he spoke again. “Our daddy doesn’t come home. We don’t worry about him.”
I felt my heart constrict, the same way it always did when he talked about Bob. I’d explained to Davey that his father was a fine man who loved him very much but who wasn’t able to live with us right now. When he’d been smaller, it had been easy. Now that he was in preschool he was beginning to realize that the other children had two parents while he only had one. The questions were coming more frequently.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Well for one thing, your daddy didn’t just disappear.” I crossed my fingers behind my back over that one. Then I gave Bob a thorough silent cursing for making these explanations necessary. “We don’t worry about your daddy because we know he’s okay.”
“How do we know?”
“We just do. Your daddy and I got a divorce which means that even though we both love you very much, we just can’t all live together. Okay?”
Davey considered that. “Maybe Harry has a divorce, too,” he said finally.
I opened my fingers and had a look. The frog had hunkered down in my palm. Its eyes were closed, but I could feel the slight motion that indicated it was still breathing. Davey reached out and stroked the smooth green back. The frog blinked one large eye. All things considered, he didn’t look too unhappy.
“He can’t live in the bathtub,” I said. “And I’m not going out in the rain to dig up any worms.”
“Yeah!” Davey jumped up in the air, tripped over the belt to his robe, and just missed cracking his head on the cabinet.
That’s how we got a pet.
I spent the better part of the week playing telephone tag with Will Perkins. The nearest shows the following weekend were on Cape Cod. Aunt Peg wasn’t planning to drive that far, and neither was I. I’d hoped to set up something for Saturday with Will, so when the phone rang first thing in the morning, I ran to get it.
It was Aunt Peg. “Rose is coming over,” she said. “She wants to discuss money. I was thinking you might want to be here.”
“Do you want me to be?”
There was a long pause on the line, Aunt Peg deciding whether or not to admit she needed moral support. “That’s up to you,” she said finally. “Rose will be here in an hour.”
That gave me just enough time to arrange a play date for Davey, make myself presentable, and drive down to Greenwich. As I pulled up to the house, I saw a plain blue Ford sedan parked by the side of the driveway. It looked like the kind of car a nun would have access to.
Aunt Peg opened the front door before I even had time to knock. For once the chorus of Poodles was silent. They didn’t come tumbling out the door or leap down the steps to overwhelm me in the hall. I took it as a sign of how seriously Aunt Peg was treating this meeting that she’d locked them away in their crates.
“What took you so long?” she hissed under her breath as she grasped my shoulder and pulled me inside. Before I could answer, I saw Aunt Rose standing in the living-room doorway.
“Melanie?” Rose’s smile was tentative. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
I crossed the hall and gave her a quick kiss. “Aunt Peg thought perhaps I might like to join you. Have you been here long?”
“Only a minute or two. We haven’t even had a chance to sit down.” She looked pointedly at Peg. “You were planning to offer me a seat, weren’t you?”
Antagonism shimmered in the air between them. “Of course she was,” I said brightly. Ignoring the undercurrents, I positioned myself between them, took each aunt by the arm, and led them into the living room.
It came as no surprise when the women chose to sit in the two high-backed wing chairs that faced each other in front of the fireplace. Briefly I considered moving all breakables from within arm’s reach.
“How about some coffee?” I asked.
“No,” Peg and Rose answered in unison. It was nice to see them agree on something.
“Do sit down, Melanie.” Aunt Peg waved vaguely toward the couch.
“Yes, sit on her side,” said Aunt Rose. “That is why you’re here, is
n’t it?”
“No, it isn’t.” I remained standing. It was the only way I’d ever get a height advantage on these two, so I figured I might as well hang onto it. “I’m not on anybody’s side. You two obviously need to talk to each other. I’m only here to listen.”
“Well?” Aunt Peg demanded.
“Well what?” Rose’s tone was equally strident. I looked around for the nearest escape route in case I should need it in a hurry.
“You wanted to talk.” Peg folded her hands in her lap. “Go ahead.”
Peg would have bristled at being given such an order. Rose looked like she wanted to do the same. But years of convent training prevailed. She stifled her temper and began. “You know, obviously, that I met with Max the week before he died. I’ll assume that he told you what we discussed?”
Aunt Peg’s nod was stiff and short.
“Then you know why I’m here. I needed money then. I still need it now. I’m not asking for charity. I know there was a sizable amount in Nana’s estate. Max has had the benefit of it all these years. Now I’d like my share.”
“Nana left you nothing in her will. That was her choice.”
“She had no choice! I had taken a vow of poverty.”
“And now that you plan to renounce your vows, you feel you should be rewarded?”
I winced at that. Resentment had simmered between these women for more than thirty years, but even so, that was pretty harsh. I said nothing and waited for the next blow to fall.
“I can see why you and Max got on so well all these years,” said Rose. “You’re both alike, stubborn and selfish. When Max died, I was sorry I hadn’t had the chance to set things right between us. But now I wonder if things could ever have been made right. Dear Lord, the two of you have been wrapped up in those dogs of yours for so long, you can’t remember how to deal with real people.”
“The Poodles have nothing to do with this,” Aunt Peg said firmly. “Unless there’s something I don’t know that you’d like to tell me about?”
Aunt Rose frowned. “So you haven’t found the dog yet. I’d wondered. Max was quite attached to him.”
“Yes, he was.” For the first time, Aunt Peg’s tone softened. She waited a long moment before continuing, and Rose didn’t push her. “You know, Max was very upset with you after you came to see him. You took him so much by surprise, I’m sure he didn’t know what to think. Eventually he would have calmed down. Eventually I imagine he’d have given you the money.”
Rose nodded. Evidently she’d come to the same conclusion. “Now it’s up to you,” she said. “Will you give it to me?”
“I can’t.”
“You just said—”
“What Max might have done and what can now be done are, unfortunately, two different things. Max’s will has gone into probate. The money isn’t available.”
Just like that, the brief moment of rapprochement was gone.
“Probate, my foot!” cried Rose. “You’re stalling, just like Max did. He hoped I’d change my mind.”
“Actually,” Peg interjected mildly, “he hoped you’d come to your senses.”
“My senses are perfectly in order. You’re the one who’s behaving like a jackass!”
Coming from anyone else, the insult would have sounded mild. But from a nun, somehow, it seemed to carry extra weight. The two of them were getting nowhere. I sighed and entered the fray.
“Aunt Rose, maybe you should think about what Aunt Peg said. If the money isn’t available—”
“I knew you were here to stand up for her,” Rose said angrily. “The only reason you’re on her side is because you only know half the story. If you had any idea of the truth . . .”
“What truth?”
Aunt Peg stood. “I think we’ve said all there is to say. Rose, you’d better go.”
“What truth?” I repeated.
“There are things you don’t know,” said Rose. “Things Peg would just as soon you never found out—”
“Rose, don’t!” Aunt Peg said sharply.
I looked at the two of them: both strong women, both family, each determined to have her own way at any cost. Despite what Rose said, I hadn’t chosen sides, but my precarious neutrality was becoming harder and harder to maintain. Maybe I needed more facts.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Aunt Rose looked angry; Aunt Peg, torn. Finally, it was she who spoke. “Melanie, dear, are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”
I shook my head, crossed my arms over my chest, and waited.
Rose looked at Peg. “So now you have nothing to say,” she snapped. “I imagine I wouldn’t either if my husband was responsible for his brother’s death.”
Pandemonium broke loose then. Even the Poodles, crated in another part of the house, began to bark.
“That’s preposterous!” cried Aunt Peg. “How dare you say such a thing? How dare you even think it!”
“I think it because it’s the truth.”
“The truth only a warped mind would see!”
This time I did physically step between them. Since I seemed to be the only sane person in the room, I had to do something. “Will one of you please tell me what’s going on?”
“I will,” Rose declared. “You’re a grown woman now, Melanie. It’s time you heard what really happened. When Nana died, the bulk of her estate went to Max, her youngest son. I received a few momentos, your own father, even less.”
“Yes, I know.” None of that was news. “My father didn’t need the money.”
Rose shook her head. “That might have been what you were told, but it wasn’t why. Michael had already received his share of his estate—and lost it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know what your father did for a living?”
“Of course, he was a stockbroker. A very good one.”
Aunt Peg’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“Your father was very charming,” said Rose. “But he had no head for business. He was wonderful at attracting customers. Less so at keeping them. Because of that, he changed jobs with some frequency.”
I remembered my childhood as a time bathed in golden light: happy, secure, and filled with laughter. There hadn’t been any upheavals or moves. If my parents had been worried, I wasn’t aware of it.
“He worked for Merrill Lynch,” I said.
“Among others,” Rose confirmed. “There are a number of brokerage houses in New York. At one time or another, Michael tried almost all of them.”
“Your father worked very hard,” Aunt Peg said gently. “He just wasn’t very good at what he did. Your parents went to great pains to conceal that from you and Frank.”
“Well, they succeeded.” I hadn’t realized I’d been retreating until I felt the couch nudge the backs of my knees. There was more coming. I sat.
“After you went off to college,” Rose continued, “your father was let go once again. He turned to Nana for help. She didn’t give him any money outright, but she contacted some old friends, and soon your father had a job again. Included in the package was her own, rather sizable account, which your father was to manage for his new firm.”
I swallowed heavily. “The money he lost.”
Rose nodded. “Oh, it took several years, but in the end it was gone. When Nana died, she was considerably poorer. That was how her will came to be set up the way it was. Max reaped the benefits, and Michael never recovered. He began to drink quite heavily after that.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I would have known.”
“You were away,” Peg said softly. “At college, then graduate school. You couldn’t have known. You parents made sure you didn’t know. They didn’t want you and Frank involved.”
How could we not be involved? I wondered. We were a family. Why hadn’t they let me help? I could have come home and gotten a job. If only I’d known. If only I hadn’t been too wrapped up in myself and my new life to see what was going on.
&n
bsp; I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Is there more?”
“No,” said Aunt Peg.
“Yes,” said Rose.
I looked back and forth between them. “Since I’m finally hearing the truth, you may as well tell me all of it.”
“The rest isn’t truth,” Aunt Peg said quickly. “It’s nothing more than harmful conjecture.”
“Tell me,” I said. “And I’ll decide.”
“The night your parents died. . .”
I remembered it well. Bob and I had been married for less than a year. We’d gone out to dinner and then to a party. I was slipping off my dress at three A.M. as I played back the message on the machine and heard . . .
“Your father was here that afternoon,” said Peg. “Michael had been laid off once again, and he asked us to bail him out.”
“Which Max refused to do,” said Rose.
Peg shot her a glare. “He didn’t refuse,” she said firmly. “But Max insisted that Michael get control of his drinking first.”
“Max and Peg didn’t help,” said Rose. “And they were the last people to have the chance. Later that evening, your parents’ car plunged off an embankment, carrying them to their deaths. Michael’s blood alcohol level was quite high at the time. It was never made public, but the possibility of suicide was raised.”
Pain, thick and numbing, began in the center of my stomach and radiated outward. I’d told them I was old enough to know what had really happened, but now I realized I wasn’t. I’d never be old enough to accept what Rose was saying, that everything I thought I knew about my parents—their lives, their marriage, even their deaths—had been a lie.
“No,” I whispered. “That isn’t true. It couldn’t be.”
“We don’t know,” said Aunt Peg. “Maybe it truly was an accident. Or maybe your mother was trying to stop him, and they lost control of the car.” She crossed the room and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “We’ll never know for sure.”
I shrugged away the comfort she wanted to offer. Anger welled up inside me now. It was better than the hurt and the sense of betrayal. I thought of the alliance I’d formed with Aunt Peg, the feeling of family I’d thought we shared. Maybe that was all just a facade, too.
A Pedigree to Die For Page 10
